Question for Bernie supporters: why does Trump prefer BS?

[scrabblequeen40]

And trash Biden?

Are you bothered by the fact that Trump prefers your candidate? Aren't you a little suspicious?

[at140]

1. Because Trump is never logical or rational?

[CentralMass]

2. Think about it. Put out a narrative that the Russians and and tRump want Sanders to win. Do you.

actually think that was meant to help him? Does that make any sense ?

[scrabblequeen40]

3. If that's the strategy, why not show Biden some love, too?

The flip side to your "narrative" argument makes not sense. If it were the case that Trump Love would cause people to turn away from Bernie, why would he also not use that strategy on Biden as well?

Why not defend Biden on Twitter as he does Bernie?

Why, instead, sabotage Biden behind closed doors? Why take the risk of getting impeached for those actions? (He did get impeached under overwhelming evidence of betrayal of his oath).

I've thought about it, and your argument makes no sense whatsoever.

[CentralMass]

6. You go with that then.

[Bluepinky]

4. Not a fact that Trump prefers Bernie Sanders.

I believe Bernie would have soundly beaten Trump in 2016.
But now that he calls himself a Democratic Socialist, I’m less sure. He should have stuck with the Democrat label.

[scrabblequeen40]

7. better question: why does Bernie accept Trump's defenses?

Why not shut it down --- immediately -- like what Biden did when Comey endorsed him.

Reject Trump's flattery. Full stop. In real time.

Do these questions not bother any of you?

[Bluepinky]

10. Bernie should shut them down if he's not.

I love Bernie’s ideas and passion. I don’t care for some of his strategies to try to get himself elected, though. His use of the label “Democratic Socialist” is a huge mistake. He denounces Trump frequently, which is good. I don’t think he accepts flattery from Trump, and why would he listen to anything Trump says anyway?
Bernie should try to tone down some of the rhetoric coming from his side.

[Celerity]

9. His incorrect self-labelling as a dem soc is maddening, as allows all the RW commie commie smears to

flung like a monkey flings poo onto all of us. And this time they have 1000 Bernie vids of him saying he is a dem soc to back up that shitty reactionary red-baiting.

He is trying to rewrite 200 year old definitions that are globally accepted, and it is a huge fail. Jacobin (real actual socialists, who view Sanders simply as a tool in the continuum leading to expropriation of the means of production, ie REAL socialism) Magazine LOVES it. So do the super radical elements with the DSA, especially the Trotskyist and revisionist Stalinist actual communists contained within that organisation's greater umbrella.) It is electoral suicide for him to stubbornly stumble and bumble down that path and it absolutes fucks the rest of the Party.



Bernie Sanders isn’t a democratic socialist. He is a social democrat

https://qz.com/1805692/bernie-sanders-isnt-a-democratic-socialist-he-is-a-social-democrat/

Democratic primary frontrunner Bernie Sanders took home a second win last night in the Nevada caucuses, where he dominated the polls and got 46% of preferences—more than twice as many as Joe Biden, who came in second with 19.6%. Sanders, who earlier won New Hampshire’s primary and essentially tied rival Pete Buttigieg in the Iowa caucuses, is gaining undeniable momentum. His success has caused serious excitement in the White House. In a tweet commenting on the results, Donald Trump rejoiced that Sanders was winning the state, encouraging him not to “let them take it away from you” (presumably, “them” is the Democratic party establishment). The reason Trump is excited about this development is likely his own campaign strategy, which has used the specter of socialism to warn against voting for the Democrats.

Sanders, who describes himself as a “democratic socialist,” provides fuel to Trump’s rants against a socialist takeover of America. But despite the longstanding negative connotations of socialism—and its powerful effect in halting social reforms such as universal health coverage—the senator from Vermont doesn’t seem too concerned about the effect a socialist label can have on his campaign or proposals. While it might not sound as dramatic, what Sanders is isn’t a socialist—democratic or otherwise—it’s a social democrat. Social democracy is a reformist approach that doesn’t do away with capitalism in its entirety (as, instead, socialism eventually suggests) but instead regulates it, providing public services and substantial welfare within the frame of an essentially market-led economy. Other leftist politicians such as Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also fall into this camp.

Why Sanders brands himself a democratic socialist remains unclear. It might be, as some have noted, because of a desire to shock. Or it may be a practical choice: Knowing his American audience is likely to equate socialism with a Stalinist, authoritarian regime, he is highlighting the intrinsically democratic aspect of his positions. The Democratic Socialists of America describe their proposals as social democratic, essentially using the two labels interchangeably, advocating that social democratic reform “must now happen at the international level” and using northern European countries as references for their vision. This seems inaccurate, however, and feeds the misunderstanding Trump is banking on.

Democratic socialism does not pursue a model like Finland, for instance, which has not done away with capitalist ways of production or a private market. The key difference between democratic socialism and social democracy is precisely that the former advocates for social ownership of the means of production, and does not believe in reforms within capitalism (although it does support temporary social democratic actions), but in a revolution of the system. The platform Sanders is running on is reformist, and what he is proposing is a US that looks much more like Canada, or Europe—which certainly are not socialist nations. Whether he believes that the end goal is beyond what Europe has achieved (and the history of his political beliefs suggests so), he still isn’t proposing an actual revolution (not within his lifetime, at least) and should just label himself accordingly.

[denem]

13. 27 July 1945: Britain is a socialist country

On the first day of the new parliament, Labour members sang the socialist anthem the Red Flag.
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/26/guardian190-labour-victory-1945

The 1945 Labour Party Manifesto
The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain - free, democratic, efficient, progressive, public-spirited, its material resources organised in the service of the British people.
https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111lab.html

We have an example of a Democratic Socialist, not Social Democratic government. Clement Attlee's
Labour government 1945-51. It is simply incorrect to say that Democratic Socialism is about doing away with Capitalism altogether - that was never the Labour project. If post war UK Labour was not Democratic Socialist, the word has no meaning. There was mass nationalization of the means of production and services.

The difference between Social Democracy, and Democratic Socialism, is that the former manages industry and services by regulation, the latter by public ownership.

Capitalism and publicly owned entities can live side by side, to their mutual benefit. There is no imperative to completely abolish private enterprise. That's a straw man.

[Celerity]

15. The UK did nationalise vast swathes of the means of production, and it ultimately was a disaster.

In the light of these considerations, the Labour Party submits to the nation the following industrial programme:

Public ownership of the fuel and power industries. For a quarter of a century the coal industry, producing Britain's most precious national raw material, has been floundering chaotically under the ownership of many hundreds of independent companies. Amalgamation under public ownership will bring great economies in operation and make it possible to modernise production methods and to raise safety standards in every colliery in the country. Public ownership of gas and electricity undertakings will lower charges, prevent competitive waste, open the way for co-ordinated research and development, and lead to the reforming of uneconomic areas of distribution. Other industries will benefit.

Public ownership of inland transport. Co-ordination of transport services by rail, road, air and canal cannot be achieved without unification. And unification without public ownership means a steady struggle with sectional interests or the enthronement of a private monopoly, which would be a menace to the rest of industry.

Public ownership of iron and steel. Private monopoly has maintained high prices and kept inefficient high-cost plants in existence. Only if public ownership replaces private monopoly can the industry become efficient.
These socialised industries, taken over on a basis of fair compensation, to be conducted efficiently in the interests of consumers, coupled with proper status and conditions for the workers employed in them.

that all went up in smoke, some of it, like British Transport Commission (BTC) after abject systemic failure

more thoughts from me:

The Winter of Discontent in 1978/79 and Michael Foot in 1983 is what we would end up reaping, if this path is chased after.

Hard pass on democratic socialism. It has been a massive, catastrophic fail every time it is tried. I now live in a social democratic nation (Sweden) and grew up in London from the age of 2, in 1998. Neither are democratic socialist, no country in the EU is.

If people are foolish enough to be gaslit by false-labels, then they will reap the rewards, and the rewards will be tears. The DSA and Jacobin, etc al. need to be completely extracted root, stem and all from any meaningful input into our Party as they are crypto-socialist stalking horses who are simply using Bernie as a vehicle to move towards a concerted effort at actual expropriation down the road.

Socialism doesn't freak out Democratic voters the way it freaks out other Americans.That's a problem.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/socialism-bernie-sanders-independents-general-election.html

For the past month, the centrist Democrats running against Sen. Bernie Sanders have begged Democratic voters not to nominate him. Former Vice President Joe Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar have argued that putting a socialist atop the ticket would help President Donald Trump and hurt Democratic candidates down the ballot. These warnings are well-founded, but they haven’t worked. Sanders has won the popular vote in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

Why, despite the warnings, is Sanders still winning? One reason is that a lot of people like him and what he stands for. Another reason is that other candidates are splitting the votes of moderate Democrats, leaving him with a plurality on the left. But there’s a third reason: Socialism doesn’t freak out Democratic voters the way it freaks out other Americans. On this subject, Democrats are very different not just from Republicans, but also from independents, who represent about 40 percent of Americans and about 30 percent of the electorate. Socialism is a loser among independents, and this makes it a liability in a general election. But Democrats don’t feel an aversion to socialism. So perhaps they don’t see the extent of the political danger.

The detachment starts with Sanders voters. In a September poll taken by Data for Progress, 37 percent of them identified themselves not as progressives or liberals, but as socialists, democratic socialists, or communists. Nearly all of them endorsed democratic socialism. In a January NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, most Sanders voters endorsed socialism even without the word “democratic” in front of it. Only 4 percent of them opposed it. These people aren’t likely to buy the argument that nominating a socialist is an unnecessary risk. For them, electing a socialist is the ballgame.

But the problem goes beyond Sanders supporters. Rank-and-file Democrats, as a whole, are significantly more pro-socialist than independents are. And while Republicans, conversely, are more anti-socialist than independents are, the gap between Democrats and independents, on average, is about 10 points bigger than the gap between Republicans and independents.

snip



more backgrounding from me

Jacobin Magazine is one of the major driving forces behind the Sanderite movement. They, like the vast majority of the DSA (and many DSA members are actual communists, far beyond garden variety socialists), ARE actual socialists, not social democrats. They want state or socialised control of the means of production. Bernie plays semantic games by labelling as a democratic socialist, but then sort of semi-denies the core tenants of it, whilst leaving himself a lot of wiggle room. He presents himself as a bog standard social democrat but then tries to reinvent our basic language by applying a false definition to the term democratic socialism.

Here is a new (will not be published until April) book by two of the main authors at Jacobin, including Meagan Day, who was the driving force behind the Warren pregnancy controversy pushed hard by the RW (they got it from her first.)

They definitely do NOT see the end game as FDR-style government, they want an overall destruction of the entire capitalist system. Bernie needs to be put on the griddle and grilled hard, not let off the hook, until he dissociates himself from the actual socialists and communists who are some of principal drivers of support and intellectual energy behind his campaign. Divide et impera works, and IF we are serious about stopping his march to the nomination (and thus a probable crushing electoral defeat in the general, making even losing control of the House a distinct possibility), our other candidates need to start to fracture his base by making him denounce the ultra radicals, and if he refuses, to then expose him as a possible Trojan Horse who is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Bigger than Bernie
How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism

by Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht

https://www.versobooks.com/books/3167-big

The political ambitions of the movement behind Bernie Sanders have never been limited to winning the White House. Since Bernie first entered the presidential primaries in 2016, his supporters have worked to organize a revolution intended to encourage the active participation of millions of ordinary people in political life. That revolution is already underway, as evidenced by the massive growth of the Democratic Socialists of America, the teachers Bernie motivated to lead strikes across red and blue states, and the rising new generation of radicals in Congress—led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—inspired by his example.

In Bigger than Bernie, activist writers Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht give us an intimate map of this emerging movement to remake American politics top to bottom, profiling the grassroots organizers who are building something bigger, and more ambitious, than the career of any one candidate. As participants themselves, Day and Uetricht provide a serious analysis of the prospects for long-term change, offering a strategy for making “political revolution” more than just a campaign slogan. They provide a road map for how to entrench democratic socialism in the halls of power and in our own lives.

Bigger than Bernie offers unmatched insights into the people behind the most unique campaign in modern American history and a clear-eyed sense of how the movement can sustain itself for the long haul.





more by Day and Uetricht


Why Bernie Sanders is just the beginning of an American turn to the left
The United States may be on the verge of a huge leftward shift. Here's what to expect

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/22/why-bernie-sanders-is-just-the-beginning-of-an-american-turn-to-the-left/

MICAH UETRICHT - MEAGAN DAY
FEBRUARY 22, 2020 3:00PM (UTC)

snip

Chris Maisano describes the democratic road as a strategy that pursues "election of a left government (likely over multiple contested elections) mandated to carry out a fundamental transformation of the political economy, coordinated with a movement from below to build new institutions and organizations of popular power in society."

Eric Blanc offers a similar formulation. Eventually, after the Left has won significant gains at the ballot box and in civil society, the capitalist class will take the gloves off against socialists and do whatever it takes to destroy our movement. We'll need to fight back. The democratic road to socialism seeks not to elide this confrontation, but to make it possible. To replace capitalism with socialism, writes Blanc, " ( a ) socialists should fight to win a socialist universal suffrage electoral majority in government/parliament and ( b ) socialists must expect that serious anti-capitalist change will necessarily require extra-parliamentary mass action like a general strike and a revolution to defeat the inevitable sabotage and resistance of the ruling class."

Though socialists are likely to be met with capitalist resistance that at times will turn violent, "revolution" doesn't necessitate mass bloodshed — and though we believe in self-defense, we certainly do not advocate violent means. A future socialist government, the late Marxist thinker Ralph Miliband wrote, "has only one major resource, namely its popular support." To pull off a revolution in our circumstances, that popular support would need to be mobilized both inside and outside of government.

[denem]

16. Again - really useful stuff on the DSA, & US socialists.

One question American socialists never get around to answering is whether the Federal Government has the constitutional power to nationalize industries - I think not !

No argument's from me that UK Socialism was a failure. It crippled the economy from the 1940s onwards. Brits could look across the pond to see the vibrant society in the United States (and Australia) compared with the grey drudgery at home.

I was in the UK as a kid, on a visit in 1976, when they had to get a bailout by the IMF!

The point I was making was Democratic Socialism, at least the UK version of it, did not envisage the abolition of capitalism - there was never a plan to nationalize Marks and Sparks for example, let alone corner grocery stores and news agents.

Socialism - central panning of the economy vis public ownership is a failed experiment - and it is not what Sanders has in mind. It's an albatross of a word around his political revolution, that he would foist on Democrats in a general election.

[Celerity]

19. lol, first time I have seen Marks & Sparks used on this board!

I would wager, unless they are expat Brits, that maybe 1 in 500 Americans would even have a clue what we are talking about (unless they cheated and used Google)

Bernie does not want complete (or as close to complete as one can get) abolition of capitalism, BUT many of within his intellectual penumbra DO. By falsely self labelling and playing footsie with ultra radicals, he is playing with real fire from a multiplicity of angles.

Because the US does not have proportional representation, it is going to get to a point where most of the far left walk on our Party. You cannot indoctrinate a mass of people for years upon years, often with extraordinarily dialectical projection of conflict, division, and the painting of the opposing side (even though they are within the same party) as the enemy without a true cleavage eventually happening. I know for a fact that the destruction of the Democratic Party and then a massive realignment through the rise of a 3rd (and in their vision, eventually 2nd or even largest party, surpassing even the Rethugs) party is the main goal of these hardwired political arsonists.

They see it as a naturally occurring forest fire, burning off the clutter and towering trees so that the floor level of the forest can be renewed. A twisted form of Schumpeter-style creative destruction writ immensely large and holistically altering the entire socio-economic, socio-cultural political system itself. It is sheer madness, and oh so dangerous, as the 2-party paradigm means that the very process they envision means giving a party of madmen, a party of the rabid dogs of hate, fundie xinism, utter subjugation of minorities, women, etc, the Republican party of Trump and his successor fascists, COMPLETE, almost unitary governmental control for what quite possibly will be DECADES.

I really do not see how this divisionist genie is going to placed back into the bottle if a certain inflection point is passed. Even a crushing defeat of the Sanderites by the majority of the other Democratic factions will not help to stem this entropic tide. In fact, if it is handled (at least in the eyes of the hard left) too ruthlessly and too brutally, it may well actually shorten the event horizon leading to this convulsive rending apart.

[denem]

17. Again - really useful stuff on the DSA, & US socialists.

One question American socialists never get around to answering is whether the Federal Government has the constitutional power to nationalize industries - I think not !

No argument's from me that UK Socialism was a failure. It crippled the economy from the 1940s onwards. Brits could look across the pond to see the vibrant society in the United States (and Australia) compared with the grey drudgery at home.

I was in the UK as a kid, on a visit in 1976, when they had to get a bailout by the IMF!

The point I was making was Democratic Socialism, at least the UK version of it, did not envisage the abolition of capitalism - there was never a plan to nationalize Marks and Sparks for example, let alone corner grocery stores and news agents.

Socialism - central panning of the economy via public ownership is a failed experiment - and it is not what Sanders has in mind. It's an albatross of a word around his political revolution, that he would bequeath to Democrats in a general election.

[relayerbob]

5. Occam's Razor nt

[PoliticAverse]

8. He does it because he knows he can elicit reactions like your post here from people that fall

for his bullshit.

[Bucky]

11. It comes down to what smear they'd rather run

Maybe they have more faith in Sierra Blanca as a Hillary-email-caliber obsession or fear that the Hunter Biden stories are a little too played out. Not that we've heard the last of Hunter Biden's messy personal life.

but you can rest assured, like Benjamin Franklin said, "There's nothing certain in life but death, taxes, and Republican bloodsport attacks."

[greenjar_01]

12. ...

[Raine]

14. Reverse reverse psychology??

I think he prefers to run against Biden but of course with Trump it's anyone's guess.

[budkin]

18. Because he thinks it'll be a cakewalk running against a "Socialist"

TBH I think Biden or Bernie can beat Trump.